Imagine having all the money in the world to sell your product through paid advertising. This spending bonanza is often the dream that most marketers would love. What would you do with 500 million dollars spent in paid media?
But all that money can’t buy you the Presidency as we learned last week from Mike Bloomberg.
There are two types of media – earned and paid.
Earned media is the coverage you receive through free PR, social media, articles in the newspaper, online, or on TV. You aren’t buying or controlling the message. You get awareness and exposure because the story is of interest.
Paid media is as it sounds – you buy an ad on TV or a digital platform. You control the message within the constraints of 30 seconds or a full page or banner. It is how the marketing world existed in The Mad Men era. It requires a lot of cash to buy paid media.
Bloomberg
Politics is not the same as marketing products and services. However, the Mike Bloomberg experiment of buying awareness with half a billion dollars demonstrates how money alone can’t help you succeed in marketing.
- Imagine if Bloomberg spent weeks in serious preparation for the debates with mock candidates challenging him. He could have brought in the top talent in the world to help prepare him for the unearned media. But even that training is only as good as he is as a speaker and debater. If Bloomberg’s first debate appearance was authoritative, forceful, and demonstrated a leader, what might be different today?
- Joe Biden surfed on 72 hours of free media. But he had invested 40 years being a known factor in the communities and investing his time in causes that mattered to the people he served. Biden spent a career nurturing, caring, and embracing the people who voted for him last week. Joe spent decades planting political seeds.
Money Matters but Messaging Does Too
If you are marketing a product or service with unlimited resources, it doesn’t guarantee success.
It gives you a chance to gain awareness, but awareness without trust is wasteful. Credibility isn’t something you can instantly buy, which is why you must understand the community you serve. And the real investment is time and the commitment to what matters to them.
Bloomberg assumed that if everyone knew his name, his record, and his experience – he could buy their trust. But trust in a brand or a person built slowly over time.
New brands, like fresh saplings, need to develop roots in the ground.
Trusted brands must become “of a community” and part of the environment. Bloomberg spent millions of dollars helping elect women to the house or representatives in 2018. He spent millions on gun safety organizations and climate control.
But his paid messages were more about him or anti-Trump. He was unsuccessful in explaining the investment he made in issues that mattered to people he was courting.
How would you spend 500 million dollars?
If I had unlimited resources to market a product, I’d spend 90% of the funds investing in those activities a community cares about for a decade. Then, I’d spend 10% of the money telling my story.
Marketing requires a long-term view. It takes years to earn trust, just like it takes time for your investment to sprout.
Don’t expect to pick fruit from trees when you just planted seeds yesterday. It takes time for them to bloom.
Looking to plant some seeds? I can help. You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Our initial conversation is free. You talk, I listen. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com or call me. 919 720 0995. Visit my website at www.themarketingsage.com Let’s explore working together today.
Photo by Nikola Jovanovic on Unsplash
